Sweet Surrender
by Tears of Stardust
Summary: *Chapter 2 Uploaded!* ~It doesn't mean much, it doesn't mean anything at all; the life I've left behind me is a cold one.~ Leon's story.
1. From One Moment To The Next

Sweet Surrender  
  
Chapter 1  
  
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy belongs to Squaresoft and Kingdom Hearts belongs to Squaresoft & Disney, respectively. Also, Sweet Surrender by Sarah McLachlan is owned by none other than the goddess Sarah herself.  
  
"C'mon Squall, you need to lighten up a little," the raven-haired girl called to Squall as he struggled with the over-sized picnic basket. It seemed that she had packed a feast for the two of them instead of a light picnic lunch. "Besides, you've been working too hard lately. It's not good for someone our age to be always thinking so seriously."  
  
Squall glanced over to his companion with a wary eye. She was about 5 foot 3, with a pale complexion wearing a light blue duster adorned with angel wings on the back. Underneath was a black tank top and black shorts, with black, ankle height lace-up boots. The sunlight played off the natural red highlights in her hair, making it look almost as though there were a halo of crimson around her head. Squall knew that she was beautiful, and that he was lucky to have her.  
  
"The SeeD exams are coming up soon Rinoa, and that in itself takes a lot of preparation." He dropped the picnic basket with a grunt, sending spouts of pollen from the many-coloured flowers that surrounded them airborne, and they drifted away slowly on the slight breeze. Squall stretched his arms high above his head, delighting in how the summer-time sun to warmed his skin then flopped rather ungracefully on the ground. He took off his leather jacket and set it beside him, glad to be free of its sweaty confines. "I'm hungry; I say we eat!"  
  
Rinoa began to giggle, then leapt nimbly over some flowers and crouched down beside Squall, so close that her own chocolate eyes were staring directly into his own blue and gold-speckled ones while her breath tickled his cheek. Squall could smell the light, flowery perfume that she always wore, and could tell that she had been sucking on a peppermint not too long ago by the sweet scent of her breath.  
  
"Aww.did I make the picnic basket too heavy?" Rinoa asked in a playful tone, a mock frown upon her face. She always found it irresistible to make fun of him. It slowly faded, however, as Squall frowned back at her, although not in a jovial way.  
  
Suddenly, he cracked a smile that lit up his whole face, and pounced on Rinoa, knocking her onto her back. "Hey, stop!" she shrieked as he began to tickle her sides. "No fair! Angelo!"  
  
Out of the flowers appeared her border collie: Angelo, rushing to help his mistress in whatever trouble she seemed to be in at the moment. Unfortunately, he was confused by Rinoa's shriek and now her laughter, and whined uncertainly, waiting to be told what to do.  
  
"Go play somewhere Angelo," Squall told him, not ceasing his incessant tickling of Rinoa as he did so. Angelo barked and then ran off into the field again, probably to torment some small animal that happened to wander across his path.  
  
"Traitor!" Rinoa managed to gasp out between peels of laughter, her stomach and face starting to hurt from her mirth. Squall stopped then, holding himself over top of Rinoa. If there were only one thing that Squall could take with him anywhere, even to life after death, it would be the memory of her smile.  
  
Rinoa shook her head, her shoulder length hair swaying ever so slightly beneath her. "Why Squall, one would almost think you were having fun for a moment."  
  
"That'll be our little secret," he teased, tapping the end of Rinoa's nose with his fingertip. "Besides, this little wrestling match has left me starving."  
  
"Same here!" Rinoa agreed, sitting up. Squall sat back, and watched as Rinoa began to pull something out of the picnic basket.  
  
Suddenly, there was silence. The wind had stopped rustling the petals of the flowers and the whole world seemed to be in an utter-stand still. The hair on the back of Squall's neck began to rise, and he slowly stood up, pulling Rinoa to her feet beside her.  
  
"What's going on?" Rinoa whispered. It seemed wrong to whisper. It seemed wrong to even breathe.  
  
"I don't know." Squall pulled out his gunblade, something that he had argued with Rinoa endlessly about bringing along with him. She had finally agreed, under Squall's want for protection should they need it. But this.emptiness, it was something that couldn't be beaten down with a gunblade and both of them knew it.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Squall could see that Rinoa was slightly behind him, her eyes and nostrils wide as though she were something being hunted. Fear had paralyzed Rinoa, and she made no attempt to do anything other than breathe.  
  
It was so still there, at that time. It's nothing that any mortal every alive has -or ever will-experience in their lifetime. It was as though everything around them had become like the night sky: so close and yet so far away at the same time. Like someone had taken the laws of the universe and turned them upside down, and everything was waiting for the new set of rules to fall back down on their heads.  
  
Suddenly, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. There was no Rinoa, no flower field, no black or white. It was the total absence of everything. And Squall was frightened.  
  
He tried to call out, but the words stuck to the back of his throat. He couldn't even utter a sound. It seemed that time stretched on infinitely, that he spent the rest of his life in a state of not aging while years of time crawled by. It seems that a lifetime can be condensed into a few moments.  
  
Squall felt hard earth under his feet, and he almost toppled over onto his face, the feeling so strange to him after the apparent nothingness. He looked around and surveyed his surroundings. There was water all around him and he stood on one of a series of floating platforms. But it wasn't the floating platforms that made him so uneasy.  
  
There was water all right, but it seemingly didn't follow the rules of any universe that he had been in. The stream stretched upwards toward the sky, flowing in an unnatural way. It seemed to be flowing into the sky, something that he had never encountered before on his many SeeD missions.  
  
Throwing his head back, Squall could make out what looked like an old castle that floated in the sky. It was a light cream colour, and from what Squall could tell from this distance was that there were a multitude of small platforms hanging around the exterior of it, attached by nothing more than what looked like a wire.  
  
/How come everything here floats?/ he wondered, turning his attention back to the closer platforms. /It would take someone with an infinite number of float spells to even consider something like this./  
  
Suddenly, another, much more urgent though took hostage of his mind. /Did Rinoa come here too.?/ He hadn't seen her in the vast emptiness, but that doesn't mean that she isn't here.  
  
His heart beating faster, Squall cupped his hands around his mouth and began to yell. "Rinoa! Rinoa, where are you? Are you here? Please answer me!"  
  
Swiftly, Squall knew what he had to do. He glanced up and saw the nearest floating platform. /If only I could jump across them./ Without giving his mind too much time to process the thought, Squall Leonhart leapt crazily, his arms flailing to grab the edge of the chunk of earth.  
  
If he had been in a more sane frame of mind, Squall would have realized that he jumped at an angle, and there was no way that he could have hoped to grab the platform from where he jumped. So instead of feeling solidity underneath his fingers, he began to fall toward the water below.  
  
As he gulped in a large breath of air, he felt it become knocked out of him as he hit the solid surface of the water. /What the.?/ He gasped at the feeling, trying to draw more breath into his depleted lungs.  
  
He glanced down and saw that sure enough, the water was supporting his weight although it was a sheet of glass. Squall stood up uneasily, keeping himself alert to the fact that it might be an illusion and the surface of the water might break at any second, plunging him into it's icy-looking depths.  
  
Glancing back, he saw that there was a mound of earth standing up from the water not far from where he was standing. Squall slowly made his way toward the hunk of earth, making sure not to let too much weight be balanced unevenly at a time.  
  
When he was at last standing in front of it again, Squall hoisted himself up quickly, not leaving his fate in the hands of the strange water anymore then he had to. A chill snaked it's way down his spine as he realized that if he fell from some of the higher platforms, it would probably do some serious damage, if not kill him.  
  
Readying himself, Squall leapt from the island to the same platform he had tried for earlier. Unlike before, however, he made sure that he would reach it this time. Looking up, he realized that he had many, many more platforms to jump to. /For Rinoa/ he reminded himself.  
  
Platform after platform, jump after jump, Squall made it higher and higher until he reached a platform that had a still pool of water sitting in it, one that obviously did not occur in nature due to it's perfectly rectangular form. /But you never know/ he thought to himself bitterly, /it could just be another reality of this strange place/.  
  
He sat down beside the oasis, idly wondering if the water would be safe enough to drink. Squall absently dipped one of his fingers into the water and was slightly surprised when he found that he could plunge his finger in further than the surface.  
  
Squall brought his finger back and placed it in his mouth, tasting it ever so slightly to see if it tasted any different from normal water. There was a slight trace of copper in the flavor of the water, so he decided against quenching his thirst with it.  
  
/Rinoa.why are you resting? Get up, Rinoa might need you!/ the voice inside his head argued with him. Squall stood up, remembering his mission. Looking up, he saw that there was one more platform to jump to. This one was further from the others though, so he knew that he had to plan his jump carefully.  
  
Taking a running start, Squall sprung as far as he could, launching himself across the empty space as far as he could. It was in the most literal sense a leap of faith, for Squall had no idea if he could even bridge half the distance, never mind the full gap.  
  
When he felt the hard crust of the platform beneath his fingers, Squall pulled himself up, and saw another strange sight. /It seems that the only thing that's an oddity here is normality/ he thought to himself as he brought himself up to examine the thing of interest.  
  
It was a multi-faceted crystal, cut with many outreaching spikes that seemed to glow a red colour from within. It stood on a tiny triangular podium, and rested on its apex. It seemed to resonate, and Squall felt the sudden urge to reach out and touch it.  
  
Suddenly, the crystal flared a different colour and a floating platform different from the ones made of earth appeared before him. It was made of metal, and it looked to be supported by a thin wire that seemed too weak to hold anything of any significant weight upon it.  
  
Squall hesitated, but then his let his instincts win out and stood on the small, purple platform.  
  
It whisked him away at an incredible speed, and Squall almost fell over at the rate of acceleration. Small, translucent clouds whizzed by him at an alarming pace and suddenly Squall found himself at the entrance to the castle he saw floating in the sky.  
  
The blocks were sand-coloured and made out of a substance that Squall had never seen before, and it had a smooth texture almost like polished marble. Looking around, he saw that there were more of the pointy crystals sitting around.  
  
It seemed Squall had arrived at the empty castle.  
  
  
  
~*~*~ A/N: Like? I've been working hard on this story, harder than normal, so please review ^_^ Flames will be used to warm my room. 


	2. Two New Companions

Chapter 2  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Sweet Surrender by Sarah McLachlan, Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy.  
  
A/N: A special thanx to those who reviewed, I'm glad you liked it ^_^  
  
  
  
Squall was at a loss, staring at the gigantic structure up close. There was no movement other than the resonation of the crystals, and total silence. It seemed that nothing dared to move at this altitude, and it made Squall feel a little anxious. There were very few things that could put Squall on edge. Unnatural silence was one of them.  
  
/Just like when you and Rinoa./  
  
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Squall yelled, defying the voice inside his head. He couldn't decide which was worse: the total silence or the annoying voice inside his head. Squall chose the silence, for at least his own thoughts kept him alert.on edge even.  
  
After the echoes of his shouting had faded, Squall assessed his preset predicament. It seemed that there was no where to go but forward unless he wanted again to travel on those horrible little platforms, and he wasn't sure that just because the wire held him on the way here it would continue to hold him if he went elsewhere.  
  
Glancing over the small railing to his left, Squall found out that his judgment was sound. There was not even the tiniest speck to hint at where the land underneath the castle began, for the place with the bizarre water was transversely placed and if he jumped, he estimated that he would have a long time to wave goodbye.  
  
Returning his gaze to the plane of elevation he was currently on, Squall noticed that straight ahead of him was an archway leading further into the castle. The opening was shrouded in shadows though, and Squall felt the hair on the back of his neck raise as he pulled out his gunblade, ready for anything.  
  
"Hello.? Who's out there? Show yourself now, stranger!" yelled a feminine voice from inside the doorway, and Squall found that if he squinted he could make out a humanoid shape standing near the right of the large entrance.  
  
"I'm not hiding," Squall shouted back, and straightened his pose, letting his gunblade hang loosely from his right hand, ready to defend himself should the figure prove to be more hostile than the soft voice gave away.  
  
"Why do you carry such a weapon in this place? What demons here do you see fit to fight here?" the voice answered, more subdued than the previous tone of voice that Squall had been addressed in.  
  
"Besides myself I see no other here." Squall tried to stop the small, grim smile that was forcing it's way onto his face, hoping that the other would fall for his poorly laid trap.  
  
It seemed that the other figure present hesitated, and then stepped out toward Squall. The person was indeed female, Squall noticed as he briefly studied her feminine curves. She was wearing a light pink dress with thick straps that clung to her shoulders and which stopped just above her brown hiking boots. She had long, auburn hair, which was twisted into some type of braid that hung down to her mid-calf. Clutched tightly in her hands her held long, silver striking staff, one that had many scratches upon it from combat presumably.  
  
Squall felt his fingers tighten involuntary on his gunblade, and he felt adrenaline begin to trickle into his veins. He knew that he would more than likely be able to over-power this girl before him with his physical strength, but he also was on guard to see what sort of Guardian Force she had decided to equip herself with. He checked his junction with Diablo one more time, hoping that this girl wouldn't have an all-powerful GF like Bahamut or even Eden.  
  
The young woman twisted her staff slightly, and Squall saw that the side of her staff was encrusted with small, circular orbs of many colors. He wondered what the point of having a staff so heavily jeweled was, for it was obvious from the scratches incurred on the side of the staff that it was not for ornamental purposes.  
  
Suddenly, one of the green orbs flared to life and Squall saw a contained wind lift the girl's hair up, whipping her hair toward the sky. "Sleep!" she yelled and Squall felt the familiar tendrils of the status spell beginning to bewitch his mind. He fought it as hard as he could, but he was no match for the spell and felt himself dropping off into a dreamless slumber.  
  
"Maybe you killed him."  
  
"Impossible. I only cast a sleep spell, not a death spell."  
  
"You never know."  
  
"Cid!"  
  
It took Squall a few minutes to register the sounds he heard as being human voices, his slow ascent to consciousness marked by how hot and sticky his mouth felt as well as the sleep formed in the corners of his eyes.  
  
"Hey, he's waking up. Cid, get him something to drink."  
  
"What do I look like, a $@#&ing waiter?"  
  
Squall slowly opened his eyes, focusing on the blur of pink and flesh tone that hovered over his head. As his vision cleared, he realized that is was the girl from before with the staff. Her emerald green eyes looked down at him quizzically, as though he were some exotic specimen in a scientist's lab.  
  
"Where.?" he managed to gasp out, his throat raspy and dry. He coughed once, a tremor running through his body. What he needed now was a drink.preferably something alcoholic.  
  
"It's okay, we're in some sort of kitchen. There doesn't seem to be anything other than us here at the moment." Squall blinked twice, then turned his head to gaze at his surroundings.  
  
He was lying on a wooden table, an ivory cloth underneath him. The floors were the same cement as the outside of the castle, and a stone divider separated him from the rest of the kitchen. In the far side of the divider was a wooden doorframe and Squall noticed several notches carved shallowly into it, as though it were used to measure the height of children.  
  
A tapestry hung opposite where Squall lay, and he propped himself up on one elbow to look over the girl's shoulder at what it depicted. It was a rendition of the castle, the air around it filled with dazzling jewels and flying mystical beasts.  
  
"I'm surprised you were out so long, usually the sleep spell doesn't." the girl started, and suddenly realization slapped Squall hard on the face. This was the girl who had wanted to fight him.  
  
He sat up suddenly, feeling a rush of blood to the head. Squall ignored it though, the more important matter of finding his gunblade preoccupying his thoughts as of present. The girl uttered a small gasp at his sudden behavior, and then tried to keep him lying down with her small arms.  
  
"C'mon, you have to stay lying down for a second, at least until the spell wears off," she pleaded, not at all certain what she should do if he tried using all his force to get away. The girl knew when she was outmatched, and this was one of those times.  
  
"What's going on in here!?" bellowed a rough voice from the doorway. Both of them stopped struggling and looked to the man in the doorway. He had short, vibrant blonde hair that stood upon in front of his head. He wore a pair of brown aviation goggles pushed up onto his forehead and his pale blue eyes glared at them both as though they were misbehaving children. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to just above his elbows, and his blue pants hung down to his black shoes. A tiny tattoo graced his heavily muscled forearm, and Squall idly wondered how many seconds he would last unarmed against a man of his strength.  
  
"It's okay Cid, our friend here just wanted to try to get up before he was ready, that's all," the girl in pink explained, an innocent smile playing across her face.  
  
Cid snorted, then handed Squall a small wooden goblet. "Here, drink up." Squall looked inside and saw the clear liquid sloshing around, his throat jumping for joy for a reprieve from it's current dry state. "It's just water boy, it won't hurt you any."  
  
"I'm not a boy," was Squall's annoyed response before raising the goblet to his lips and then draining it of it's contents, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth when he was done.  
  
"Fine, then give me something else to call you then." Cid raised an eyebrow at the young man, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.  
  
"My name's Squall." He stared back at the man with an expression he hoped was stony indifference.  
  
"There, that wasn't so hard now was it?" Cid patronized, "I'm Cid, and the lady over there is Aerith."  
  
"Sorry about the spell, Squall," she began, dropping her head slightly at looking up at him through her lashes, "but I thought that you were going to try to fight me with your gun-sword thing over there." She nodded to his gunblade, propped up against the wall. "I just."  
  
"Didn't want to hurt me too bad?" Squall interrupted, a small smile trying to work it's way onto his face. Seeing this girl so closely, Squall knew that if all she had in her arsenal were a sleep spell then he would be safe.  
  
Aerith's face broke out into a large grin that light up her delicate features, and Cid chuckled softly from where he stood beside Squall. "You know what kid? You're alright," Cid grinned.  
  
"So can I sit up then?" Squall asked, finally allowing the smile to flit across his face. He pulled himself upright then swung his legs over the side of the bench, the other two stepping back to give him some room to move.  
  
"Careful now, we don't want you to collapse again," Aerith teased lightly, placing a supportive hand on his shoulder. He flicked his eyes briefly to where her hand was, then put his own on top of it and smiled at her again, this one weaker than his previous and full of false bravado. Squall had noticed how torn her nails were, bitten or ripped off from stress. As a SeeD it was important to notice small details such as that.  
  
Squall stood shakily, putting a hand on the bench behind him for support until he was sure that his legs could support the full weight of his body. The room seemed to swirl and dance in front of his eyes, and he felt vertigo overcome him so strongly that he almost had to sit back down again.  
  
Cid and Aerith, seeing the slight swaying of his body stepped forward almost simultaneously to grasp at his arms to keep him upright. Slowly, the dizziness ebbed and Squall shook them off, determined not to depend too much on these strangers as of now.  
  
"Well, can you do it?" Cid asked, trying to sound full of swagger, but his voice carried a tint of concern that Squall picked up on.  
  
"Only take one step at a time," Aerith directly lightly, worrying over him as though he were still a child. A light frown touched her brow, although she tried to smile bravely. It seemed that these strangers had already counted on befriending him.  
  
It was strange really, the ease at which he felt around these people already, as though they had known each other their entire lives. He sensed that they too, found some sort of comfort around him that seemed unexplainable. After all, we had only known these people a grand total of 10 minutes, although they amount of time they must have spent caring over his unconscious body Squall could not tell.  
  
"Well? Are you going to stand here looking like a fool for the rest of the day or are you going to at least try at walking?" Cid asked gruffly, irritation lacing his voice and bringing Squall's thoughts back to the present moment.  
  
"Yeah, ok." He inhaled deeply, hoping that his legs wouldn't give out on him and make him look like a fool. Aerith may look tiny and harmless, but she cast a mean sleep spell.  
  
Suddenly, Squall felt a pair of hands on his back, pushing him forward violently. He lurched forward and fell to his hands and knees, both scraping roughly against the stone floor and sending jolts of pain through his entire body.  
  
He heard Aerith's startled gasp and then Cid breathless exclamation: "Well, I'll be damned." 


End file.
